Against Monopoly and not against State Schools

Abstract

The essay entitled School and Freedom, which appeared in the first collection of these homilies, has come in for considerable criticism, which I will not stop to dwell on here, since the aim of generating a discussion that is by no means futile has been achieved. But since some of the criticisms start out from the tacit premise of the abolition of state schools, and the related claim that I support their abolition, I would like to point out that this hypothesis is not substantiated by any declaration contained in the essay. On the contrary: it is explicitly asserted (on sheet 55) that the critical analysis of the system adopted in Italy did not lead to the conclusion that it ‘should be abandoned in favour of the opposite system’, and that ‘in every country the past justly dominates the present and the future; traditions, method of recruiting teachers, methods for assessing students: all these are things that cannot be changed overnight, and if an attempt is suddenly made in this direction, it gives rise to an even greater evil than that for which a remedy was sought’.

First published in Prediche Inutili, pp. 145–150, Giulio Einaudi (ed.), Turin, 1959.